An image forming apparatus such as a facsimile, a printer and a copier, or a multi-functional peripheral including a plurality of these functions has been widely used. Among such image forming apparatuses, there is an apparatus which is able to display guidance information in order to help user operation corresponding to a complicated function and a method of setting the same. A user is able to perform desired function setting and the like while confirming the guidance information.
As a technique for helping user operation in an image forming apparatus, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-67066 discloses an image forming apparatus in which a usage history of each user is saved in a storage area and the user is specified by information acquired by user information reading means, which is checked with usage history information, so that an operation screen for a beginner is displayed in the case of judging that a current user is a beginner.
In the image forming apparatus in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-67066, since a user is judged whether or not to be a beginner based on usage history of the user, even a user with a high frequency of use is not able to perform optimal operation in the case of being unfamiliar with a function included in the image forming apparatus, and it is impossible in the image forming apparatus to display an operation screen for setting the function.
Functions that are included in an image forming apparatus are described in a manual or the like in many cases, however, a recent multifunctional image forming apparatus makes a user difficult to easily recognize all functions.